THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND MEDICO-CYBER-POLITICAL DISCOURSE
The discourses on viruses and virality have hitherto typically been dominated by the spheres of the medical (virology) and communication (the ‘contamination’ of communicative networks, e.g. by computer viruses). The Covid-19 pandemic has introduced alternative, and more complicated, theoretical and practical spaces likely to challenge this dichotomous situation. In virology, the medical discourses are dominated by putative treatments and prophylactics such as vaccines – such as Regeneron (at $96,000 per course of treatment, used recently on Donald Trump), steroids such as dexamethasone (also used to treat Trump). In the realm of communicative-network viruses, any invocation of steroids (say) would amount to an egregious category mistake, and the discourse here swivels around the security afforded by programs such as McAfee, Kaspersky, and Malwarebytes, which remove spyware, malicious cookies, and so on. The Covid-19 pandemic has breached such dichotomous lines of thought. If anything, it is clear that the medical science involved, merely by being politicized, has entered the realm of political (as opposed to purely medical) discourse. This is a medico-political discourse, straddling both science and politics. This chapter will draw on Deleuze and Guattari’s use of Louis Hjelmslev’s semiotics to map out and analyze this new discursive terrain.
